python imaplib fetch result is none with simple email from gmail

Question

i get None as a result for an email i wrote with Thunderbird or gmail webapp.

For example my subject is "myfancysubject" and the text is just "hello"

i get no data (NONE) by using imaplib fetch operation with

 result, data = mail.fetch(latest_email_id, '(RFC822)') # fetch the email body (RFC822) for the given ID

my assumption is the mail has no RFC822 Tag ?

But how can i get the content of that mail ?

here is my full code:

import imaplib
import email

try:
    mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
    mail.login('[email protected]', 'password')
    labels = mail.list()
    # Out: list of "folders" aka labels in gmail.
    inbox = mail.select("inbox") # connect to inbox.
    #result, data = mail.search(None, "ALL")
    result, data = mail.uid('search', None, '(HEADER Subject "myfancysubject")')


    ids = data[0] # data is a list.
    id_list = ids.split() # ids is a space separated string

    latest_email_id = None
    if len(id_list) == 1:
        latest_email_id = id_list[0] # get the latest
        pass
    else:
        latest_email_id = id_list[-1]
        pass

    result, data = mail.fetch(latest_email_id, '(RFC822)') # fetch the email body (RFC822) for the given ID

    print(data)

    raw_email = data[0][0]
    email_message = email.message_from_string(raw_email)

    print email_message['To']

    print email.utils.parseaddr(email_message['From'])

    print email_message.items() # print all headers

except Exception:
    print('Ex')

Could you check before fetching that latest_email_id is not None? — fredtantini
– fredtantini, Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:33
latest_email_id is not None, its "{Str}'13591'" and alters if i write a new one — svenhornberg
– svenhornberg, Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:36
That was worth trying… Could you try the "alternatively" in this answer? — fredtantini
– fredtantini, Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:40
Hi, Did you find a solution? It seems to be a problem wih specific kinds of email. eg: aws ses abuse report — sprksh
– sprksh, Commented Feb 17, 2017 at 9:24

sprksh · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-17 12:53:52Z

4

Got the solution, You have to be consistent in using uid or sequential id

Instead of using

result, data = mail.fetch(latest_email_id, '(RFC822)')

I had to use :

result, data = mail.uid('fetch', latest_email_id, '(RFC822)')

As previously you had searched through UID instead of the sequence id. Then later you were trying to get RFC822 or body of mail by sequence id (default).

You were trying to get sequence id x instead of uid x. These two differ when some mail has been deleted in between.

It was perhaps giving none because the mail with that se might have been deleted or something.

answered Feb 17, 2017 at 12:53

sprksh

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1 Comment

Nico Brenner Over a year ago

Same here. And it's weird because the same script works for different messages. Anyway, thank you so much, this really helped!

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